


Vicarious Butterflies

by RogueTranslator



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean Winchester Talks About Feelings, Episode: s08e17 Goodbye Stranger, Episode: s08e18 Freaks and Geeks, M/M, Photographs, Pining, Sam Winchester Ships Castiel/Dean Winchester, Season/Series 08, Sexist Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:28:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25518814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogueTranslator/pseuds/RogueTranslator
Summary: In the checkout line of Wichita's organic grocer, Sam gets a look inside Dean's wallet. He should be more surprised by the picture Dean carries around with him than he is.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, pre-Castiel/Dean Winchester - Relationship
Comments: 15
Kudos: 209
Collections: The AO3 SPN Kink Meme





	Vicarious Butterflies

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [theao3spnkinkmeme](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/theao3spnkinkmeme) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Dean carries a photo of Cas in his wallet. Sam sees it and teases him, but then eases up when Dean's embarrassment turns sad.
> 
>  **do want:** pre-Dean/Cas rship. pining!Dean is bad at talking about his feelings. set anywhere before season 10. supportive brother Sam kinda knows Dean's in love with Cas. Dean opening up.. but only a little. 
> 
> **no thankyou:** heavy angst

On the way back from Conway Springs, Dean spotted a billboard for a surf and turf restaurant and screeched off the interstate. He was in hog heaven all through lunch, spraying lobster juice everywhere except over the bib he’d strapped on. Sam grinned at him as he picked at his soggy croutons.

“What?” Dean said suspiciously.

“Nothing. It’s just nice seeing you smile.”

“Come again?”

“You’ve been kind of a grouch since Cass disappeared with the angel tablet, that’s all.”

“Not this again. I told you, I don’t want to talk about it.”

Sam sighed. Of course he didn’t.

“Something wrong with your grub?” Dean said. “You’ve hardly touched it.”

“No, it’s fine.” Sam forced down a few strips of lettuce, and Dean, seemingly satisfied, returned his attention to his steak. The first trial was still affecting his appetite, his sleep, his memory—Dean only worried more when Sam talked about the side effects, though. Neither of them could do anything about it, so Sam preferred to leave Dean in the dark as much as he could.

Sam put the meal on one of his credit cards. He staggered when they stood up to leave and pretended that he’d tripped on a seam in the carpet. Dean didn’t seem convinced, but he chose not to press the issue.

“Anywhere else you want to stop in Wichita while we’re here?” Dean said, once they were back in the Impala.

“We could pick up some groceries. There’s still some stuff in the fridge, but we might as well.”

“And by ‘groceries,’ I’m guessing you mean Sprouts.”

Sam rubbed between his brows. “Yes, Dean. That’s what I mean.” Sprouts was the natural and organic food store. Sam requested a stop there any time they passed through Wichita, but Dean only obliged him sometimes.

“Alright, as long as you don’t make me eat anything you buy.” Dean started the car. “Seat belt.”

Sam strapped in. Normally, he’d bristle at being ordered to buckle his seat belt—as if he would forget, as if he were still a kid—but with the burden of the trials, Dean’s mother hen routine felt oddly comforting.

It was late March, the start of spring. They drove to the other side of Wichita with the windows down. The Doobie Brothers were on the radio, then ZZ Top. Dean tapped the basslines on the steering wheel absentmindedly, in the silence-filling way he did when he was thinking over something but didn’t want Sam to ask him questions about it.

In the Sprouts parking lot, they split up, a cart each. Dean walked ahead to ask the associate at the door where the real food was. Sam pretended he didn’t know him.

Grocery shopping, Sam had found, was a challenge when one had all but lost the will to eat. He settled on anodyne things: a bunch of underripe bananas, a bag of string cheese, baby carrots, plain yogurt. There were plenty of frozen meals back at the bunker, so he was focusing on the items Dean wouldn’t think of when he made his pilgrimage to the convenience store every Tuesday and Friday.

He passed Dean in one of the packaged food aisles. He’d dropped several bags of potato chips into his cart. At the other end lay a full-size peach pie.

“Well, that’s two of your five food groups,” Sam commented.

“Hey, good to know this place isn’t a complete write-off. Now I just need to find the beer.”

Sam pushed on. “I won’t take too much longer.”

Corn flakes, white rice, navel oranges, canned spinach. It was like he was buying ingredients for a hospital cafeteria. That made sense, actually.

It was early afternoon on a weekday, so nearly all the lanes were free. The cashier drank from her water bottle as Sam stacked his groceries on the conveyer belt. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath; there was a panging somewhere in his lungs. Sam didn’t want to know how the second trial would compound the stress on his body.

She was smiling when he opened his eyes. “How’s your day going?”

“Pretty good,” he said, which wasn’t entirely a lie. The case in Conway Springs had ended on an optimistic note, all things considered. Child hunters being stuck in the life, only having each other to rely on—that hit him too close to home, but he’d long ago accepted that the best he and Dean could do for people was usually less than they deserved.

“You?” he added, almost forgetting.

She hummed in response and scanned the last item. Sam ran his credit card as she bagged the rest of his food.

“Surprised you finished first,” Dean said from behind him. He tapped Sam’s shopping cart. “Scoot forward.”

Sam wheeled his cart and bags out of the lane and waited for Dean. He’d found the beer—an entire case of it. Also, a fifth of craft whiskey. Sam frowned at that. Dean was a functional alcoholic at the best of times, but schisms in his relationship with Castiel always pushed him into a downward spiral.

“Yeah, my brother loves this place,” Dean was saying. “You go to college around here?”

Sam rolled his eyes. No service employee was safe from Dean’s lame pickup attempts. Besides—

“Is that?” Sam leaned forward. Dean had laid his wallet flat on the little raised counter above the register, and a small, worn-edged photograph tucked into the corner of one of its plastic sleeves caught Sam’s eye. Dean tried to snap his wallet shut, but Sam, catlike, pressed his hand flat atop it.

“Cass?” Sam grinned. “You carry a picture of Cass in your wallet?”

It was a picture of Castiel from a few years back; he could tell from the way his hair tufted and spiked up messily from his forehead. Sam wondered whether Dean had carried the photograph with him all this time. He’d never noticed it before, but he never really looked in Dean’s wallet.

Dean elbowed him. “What the hell? Get off.”

Sam acquiesced. Dean, beet-red now, placed himself between his wallet and Sam as he paid.

“I apologize for my brother,” Dean said. “He’s a little immature.”

Sam rubbed the tip of his nose. “Yeah, uh. That’s what everyone says.”

The cashier smiled as she handed Dean his receipt. “You two have a great day.”

Dean nodded sheepishly. They pushed their carts out of the store. Sam waited until they were at the car to speak again.

“So, uh—”

Dean glared at him. “Don’t.”

“So, Cass, huh?” Sam dropped his bags in the back seat. “Does he know?”

“I keep it in case we need to show someone a picture,” Dean said, from the other side. “Cass disappears a lot. I figured it’d be useful if we ever need to pick up his trail.”

Sam snorted. “Yeah, right. When have we ever done that?”

Dean slammed his side of the back seat shut. He walked to the cart return, and Sam followed him.

“No, I mean, I get it. The voice, the eyes, the healing hands. Who wouldn’t go weak in the knees?”

“Look, Sammy, I don’t need to hear your fantasies about Cass. You can keep those to yourself.”

“You’re right. Wouldn’t want to make you jealous.”

“Just—” Dean shoved his cart into the empty return and stalked away.

“Dean!” Sam threw his hand up in exasperation. Dean got into the car without looking back.

It was strange. He and Dean usually traded barbs back and forth for a while longer before one of them conceded. And Dean had the advantage: he wasn’t the one being consumed from the inside out by an ancient ritual.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t strange. Just days ago, Castiel had beaten Dean to within an inch of his life, broken free of Heaven’s mind control, and disappeared with the angel tablet without so much as a goodbye. That wound was bound to still be fresh, and Sam was picking at it like the annoying little brother he was.

Sam slouched back to the Impala. As soon as he got in, Dean thrust his key into the ignition. Sam placed his hand over Dean’s wrist.

“Wait.”

Dean flicked him away. “What?”

“Dean, I—look, I’m sorry. I’m being a dick. I’m ribbing you about Cass, but I didn’t think about the fact that he’s missing.”

“Not just missing, Sam. Missing with the biggest nuke in existence strapped to him.”

“Yeah.” Sam sighed. “You must be worried.”

Dean peered at him, probably trying to discern whether he was being genuine or if this was just a prelude to more teasing.

“Yeah,” Dean said eventually. “I mean, aren’t you?”

“Of course. But it must be worse for you.”

Dean stiffened. He looked away.

“Because you were the last one to see him, I mean. Because of what he did to you.”

“It wasn’t his fault, Sam. He’s been mind-controlled this whole time by that bitch, Naomi. And I—” Dean clenched his fist. “I didn’t even see it.”

“Well, neither did I.”

“Yeah, but—” Dean hesitated. “I should’ve seen it. I just didn’t want to.”

“What do you mean?”

“When Cass came back from Purgatory, I knew something was up. But I didn’t want to believe it. I just wanted to….”

“You were just happy he was back.”

Dean nodded.

“I don’t get why he didn’t trust me,” Dean said, after a long beat. “After everything we’ve been through. I spent a year neck-deep in monster heaven for him. Praying to him. Not to mention everything before that.”

“Maybe he’s still brainwashed?”

“No.” Dean shook his head. “No, I could tell when the connection broke. I knew it was him.”

Sam looked down at Dean’s lap. Dean was squeezing his thigh with one of his hands, his grip tight enough for bulging veins and white fingertips. He wiped his other hand under his eyes, offering some lie about hay fever.

All of this over a few jokes about a wallet photo. Sam would have laughed if Dean weren’t so distraught. He hadn’t had much doubt over whether Dean was in love with Castiel before now, but this clinched it. Maybe it wasn’t the rip-each-other’s-clothes-off passion Dean was used to, but it was some kind of love. The kind of love that blew away the strongest magic of Heaven as if it were so much dust in the wind.

“We’ll get him back, Dean.”

Dean took a deep breath. He stared at the highway until he felt Sam’s hand on his shoulder.

“We’ll get him back.”

“Yeah,” Dean finally said. He cleared his throat, scratched his nose. “Of course we will. And when we do, I’ll give him a kick up his feathered ass.”

Sam chuckled. He glanced at Dean’s pocket.

“It’s a nice picture, by the way,” he said. He was walking on eggshells, but he wanted Dean to know his teasing hadn’t meant anything. That he’d accept Dean no matter what.

“You saw nothing,” Dean muttered.

“Okay. If that’s how you want—”

“It is.” Dean started the car. “Seat belt.”

Sam smiled. For the first time since he’d started the trials, he felt something in his chest that wasn’t gnawing dread. There was warmth, buoyancy—vicarious butterflies, if such a thing were possible.

He buckled his seat belt for the drive back home.


End file.
